Renewable energy and hybrid power

Vehicles consume huge amount of energy, in the form of various versions of oil. It is said if every Chinese own a car, world’s oil supplies will last only for a year. This shows how fast this source if depleting. So obvious choice is to go for other sources, preferably renewable sources like solar, wind, tidal power and so on. But replacing is only a one answer. There are other ways of making use of existing sources more effectively and efficiently. I am sure you have learn the concept of 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle).

People are continuously looking for ways to build an environmentally sustainable car, which consumes less resources and emits less amount of CO2 and other gases. One of the preferred methods is the famous “Electric Car”. In concept electric car is a great idea. But when it comes to practice, it has its own share of problems. First and foremost, the infrastructure makes it difficult to operate. If we run out of fuel, we will go to a gas station and fill the tank and we are on the move in couple of minutes. But recharging points for electric vehicles are not widely available and even if you find one, it takes some time to complete the charging. This will at least take 4 hours for a full charge. So if you in hurry, this option will not help you. (In my opinion the better solution will be changing batteries. If we can have places where the battery can be replaced with a fully charged one, and the dead battery can be charged by the station and then can be fitted to another vehicle. This will save good amount of time to the user and will make the system more reliable). In addition, another main drawback I see is that if we do not manufacture electricity using renewable sources, using electric cars will just switch the pollution from the highway to the power plant. So the ultimate objective is not achieved.

This is why I am fond of hybrid technology than pure electric car technology. Hybrid technology can drastically reduce the consumption of oil; hence it will reduce pollution and will save you big bucks as well. One of the most popular hybrids is the Toyota Prius. This vehicle can give you about 50 miles per gallon in contrast to 30 miles per gallon which most of the normal cars would do. This is almost doubled efficiency. So you can save almost half in your gas stations. In addition you will emit only half of the harmful gases.

This technology is now mature and has a great future. Until we switch to more viable solutions, hybrids can save some money to the user and do a great favor to the environment.